HMS Victory by shihawk - FINISHED - Billing Boats - 1:75

[shihawk]

Tks for looking in folks ,

Kevin .i,m not sure what you mean about the gunports ,when you say acute angle do you mean the line of the ports ,or the angle to the galleries ??, Several realignments mean they could have finished up anywhere ,and don,t worry about criticism the more the better ,it,s a great way to learn !!

[shihawk]

I hold my hands up , Kevin is correct my stern gun ports are at completely the wrong angle to shoot anything other than the rudder  Just goes to show how an unnoticed mistake early in the build can cause problems later own  All i can do now is remove the guns and tell the crew they can us them to fish through cause this captain ain,t changing them !!  Have FUN 

[shihawk]

Been doing a lot of searching through pics of Victorys this last couple of days mainly to get ideas of how to complete the bow area and have come to the conclusion that i have sliped back onto trying to duplicate the color scheme with wood rather than doing my own thing which was the original idea . Having looked at numerous other model pics none of which are the same i have decided to try to forget about the real color scheme and go with what i think looks right ,this may unfortunately mean redoing some previous work again ,catheads for example ,i think the one,s i made are not solid looking enough and maybe over worked , some times simpler looks best ? good clean lines !! Maybe as the admiral has suggested on several occasions i am slowly losing it ,?but i,ll work it out eventually .

[clearway]

At the end of the day Boyd it is your ship so whatever you want it to look like will be fine- if anyone complains tell them to go and build their own - as for the admiral mine has been looking at me for years in the workshop and shaking her head and saying your nuts!

Keith

[shihawk]

 tks Keith   I have to keep reminding myself i,m the captain  .By the way i received the 1:78 brass decor ,hope to get it fitted soon 

Edited October 27, 2014 by shihawk

[shihawk]

As seems to be the norm with this build everything has to done at least twice  .I had thought i was doing well on the bow section and had used the ply  arches and coloumns provided and was reasonably happy untill i varnished and to be honest it just looked like varnished ply !!  So i started again and this time replaced the ply with maple  and changed the hindges etc (, this led to my post on cutting curves  ,thanks for all the likes i hope it will be of some help to somebody ) the first is the ply and the second the maple 

                                                                                                                                       

 

the difference is much greater in real life 

 

 

 

 

 then i moved back to the decor on the stern  , the brass replacements are a big improvement but although very similar in size needed quite a bit of triming and cleaning . the fact they didn,t fit was my fault as i didn,t leave enough room when making  the window frames  the pic shows the ply ones provided ,next the raw replacement and finaly 2 hours of triming and polishing  

 

 

I want to finish the stern before i do any more work up front as the best way to work at the rear end is to stand it upright and hold between legs 

[clearway]

Wasn't just you Boyd m8, i am about to re-start my Victory after mucking about with me 1/35 scale tanks for a while, and first job is to trim the brass castings to fit the available space.

Keith

[shihawk]

Quick couple of pics to show finished stern gallaries  I think the brass looks alright , i can,t even begin to think how some of you guys can paint such fine detail , it would be completely beyond me .

 

 

 

I think it,s the T that is slightly off ??

Edited November 1, 2014 by shihawk

[NMBROOK]

She is looking wonderful Boyd,great work!!I love the different woodtones and think that your decorations look good in brass,the only other alternative IMHO would have been carved wood,painting these in the historically correct colours wouldn't look right on your model.

 

Kind Regards

 

Nigel

[shihawk]

Nigel , I am inclined to agree that the painted option wouldn,t have looked right even if it had been possible ,and this is part of my predicament with this build . When i look at other authentic Victory models for help i have to remind myself that mine is not a copy of the real Victory and that i can do it what ever way i think looks right , but i,m slowly getting used to it .

 John , I,m happy with the stern gunports as they are , in fact when i looked at the gallery of Victory models i was plesantly suprised to see that many builders had left them out completely , so apart from a few fidly bites , chain etc which i will add later  i consider my stern finished  .

 

 Now it,s on to the bow or front end as i call it , and guess what , it,s going to be another scratch build !!!!

 tks for looking in.

        Boyd

[clearway]

Well done Boyd looks fantastic m8

[shihawk]

tks Keith . the brass fittings weren,t hard to fit , the swirls above the figure were the worst and needed severe cutting back i also filed them down to about half their thickness, which also meant i could straighten the twirls slightly to fit them in ,  The strips that join the swirls to the top piece were made from brass wire , shaped and then flattened , not perfect but the best i could manage 

[shihawk]

Been having a few computer problems so took a few pics as i went along .As i thought the most of the bow had to be rebuilt using the ply parts as a guide 

 

 

Afew bits and pieces copied from the ply parts supplied

 

 

 

 

 

the extra pieces shown in the final 2 pics are only dryfitted and will not be added for safety reasons untill later in the build 

 

 

 

[clearway]

Looking good there Boyd- will have to put my 1/35 ww2 german armour to one side and re-start my Vic

Keith

[shihawk]

Next stage has been getting the cannons ready , The plan is to finish the third deck before putting on the top deck ,simply to give myself room to work , the only downside i can think of is that i will have to split the ply false deck to get it fitted but i don,t think this should cause many problems , i,ve heard that before . ??  As you will know i decided to discard the plastic gun carriages provided and after a few trials have finally come up with a design that pleases me  .A fair bit of brass involved but i have decided i like the look of brass with the natural wood so will probably use it where i think through the build . I finished up painting the cannons gun metal , having tried a couple of blacking solutions with rather unpredictable results and i although it spoils my non paint plan i think the result suits the build .

first pic shows how many attach the rope to the cannon ,which according to real Victory  pics was not the way it was done 

 

 

I have never soldered and had to think of a simple method of fixing a ring on the breech , if thats the right word , finally drilled a small hole ,cut a piece of wire and with a drop of ca and carefull fitting found a solution , i think ??

 

 

 

 

 It,s not perfect but when the rope is added it hides a lot 

 

 

 

 Brass eyes are made from wire but i bought the black rings , 3mm  that the rope passes through  

Another night or two should finish the sixteen i need to finish this deck 

 

A couple of questions to anyone who might know  

 On 1:72 scale would the blocks on the cannon rigging be 2  or 3 mm ??

 The rope seen in pic i think is that provided for the cannons , i think it looks alright but wonder if perhaps it,s to big  ???

[clearway]

Certainly looks the part Boyd- kep it uo m8

Keith

[shihawk]

Still workings on the cannon rigging ,decided to go ahead and use the rope provided so i stretched it out and give it a coat o well thinned wood glue as well as stopping it unraveling it took the bright whiteness  of it ,and also did away with the fuss .

 

 

Before and after 

 

I then measured out the required lengths approx 3 times the length of the cannon barrel plus 1 cm either end for serving . Although these will not really be seen i decided to try out Alexy,s serving machine and use them to practice on

 

 

The power supplies have not arrived yet but  for work this delicate i would not have used it anyway 

 

I did add a small hook just to save taping the loop every time and it worked a treat once i trimed it down a couple of times 

 

 

 

It certainly worked well for my first attempt and once set up made a very fiddely process quite straight forward and a lot quicker  Thanks Alexy.

 

 

A spot of watery woodglue and a trim and i,m happy 

 

 

Of course things can,t keep going smoothly ,i now find i have a lot of rope to contend with when i dry fitted a few . 

 

 

But i,ll sleep on it , if necessary i can shorten them ,but only as a last resort???

[clearway]

In the Haynes victory manual it shows the ropes tied above the breech then run under the trolley to take up slack Boyd.

Keith

[shihawk]

Hi keith ,any chance of a pic??

[clearway]

There you go Boyd hope this helps.

Keith

Edited November 26, 2014 by clearway

[shihawk]

Spent the last couple of days figuring out the rigging of the cannons , I finaly decided on a variation of the pic that keith sent me 

 

 

It tidies all the rope and a small spot of ca under the front axel kept the whole thing in place , leaving me just enough room to fit the eyelet . I don,t want any of these carriages coming lose at a later stage , when the upper deck has been fitted so i went for a braces and belt method of fixing them in place , As well as sanding the bottom of the wheels and gluing with wood glue i pushed a fine pin through the base of each carriage and with a spot of ca pushed it into the deck  This method seems to have worked well as i had diffs removing one for realighment .!!

 

 

Now for the tricky bit , i have searched the forum for a definitive method of rigging the blocks on a cannon , something that looks right and if possible is simple and easy to construct ,and then attempted a few experiments of my own . Fortunately the Admiral was away to-day so i had sole use of the i-pad to take as many pics as i liked so i took a few of my progress through a very frustrating day . Not all my attempts are covered here only ones i remembered to take a pic off , i went from making my own blocks to at one stage deciding to leave them out altogether 

 

 

 

considered this mite look alright from a distance , but when i looked at the pic decided it wasn,t good enough !!

 

Then tried 3mm blocks with the hooks run through them ,but when fitted they looked to big 

 

The problem is with the cannons run out there is very little room between the blocks and when hooks are added it,s reduced even more 

 

 

Tried using finner thread and filling down the blocks ,but it was to long and thin looking 

 

I remembered i had some 2mm blocks left from the Cruiser build ,and then set about making as small a hook as possible . I wanted the hooks to be black to stand out against the brass eyelets , the following pis show the process i think i will use 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At least thats the first one finished 

 

 

Quick check for alignment

 

 

To-morrows work awaits me ,hope this post wasn,t to long and boring but i just thought i would try to explain my thought process ,what little there is of it .???

[shihawk]

 Thanks for lookin in John  .Could, nt work without magnifers ,and even then focus sometimes goes !!!

Edited November 27, 2014 by shihawk

[seamymcnally]

Hi all ,i came across these few pics of the victory on line .

Edited November 28, 2014 by seamy

[shihawk]

 Thanks seamy ,I have seen these , the work is brilliant ,and makes me green with envy . How do they do it ?? everything is so crisp!! I notice though that he didn,t fully rig his cannons , sometimes less is more !!  Maybe i should take a hint . I hope anyone reading my log dosen,t think this is my build . if only , i can always live in hope ?

[seamymcnally]

It gives us something to aim for thats for sure ..

[shihawk]

Seamy , i see we are neighbours , have you a build log ?. Just curious 

[seamymcnally]

No ..no build log .not good with computers enought to put one up .started mine two years ago which was my first wooden build and have been waiting that long for you guys to start one...i have the deck and port holes done.it was the stern that i have been stuck on..and thanks to yous guys from what i have seen i can now carry on .cheers seamy

[shihawk]

Setting up a log ain,t that diff if i can do it anyone can , give it a go through the tutorials , it leaves it easier when in diffs to ask questions 

 

Boyd

[Shipyard sid]

Greetings Boyd

Excellent work, as it has been from the very start. Well done Boyd, keep enjoying it .DAVID

[shihawk]

Tks David , Im settling into a routine of spending 3 days working out how to do something that then only takes 1 day to complete , but that said i really am enjoying it ,each new stage has it,s different challanges and i think thats become part of the attraction .